Latest news with #sharkattacks
Yahoo
a day ago
- General
- Yahoo
Are there sharks in Delaware waters? Yes, here's what you need to know
Fifty years ago, the first summer blockbuster made people wonder if it's safe to go in the water. "Jaws" was nightmare fuel for people who enjoyed going to the beach but wondered if the apex predator was lurking in the blue void. Fast forward 50 years, and sharks are still roaming the Delaware Bay and Atlantic Ocean. However, there isn't much of a reason to fear going in the water. How many shark attacks have happened in Delaware? Since 1837, there have been five shark attacks in Delaware waters, according to the database at the University of Florida. The biggest period for shark attacks was in the 1960s when two were reported in Delaware. The last two attacks were a 14-year-old boy who was hospitalized after a shark bite at Cape Henlopen State Park in June 2020, according to a Delaware Online/The News Journal story from 2021. That bite was likely from a sandbar shark, a state expert said. In 2014, another teen was bitten by a shark, also at Cape Henlopen State Park. How many sharks are in Delaware? According to the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, as many as 62 species of sharks can be found in the Atlantic Ocean, Delaware Bay and inland bays. Included in the 62 is the great white shark. The great white, which has terrorized people ever since the movie "Jaws" was released in 1975, is the least common species found in Delaware waters. What are the most common sharks in Delaware? Sandbar shark According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the sandbar shark, also known as a brown or thickskin shark, can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh up to 200 pounds. The sandbar is among the largest sharks found in coastal waters. They live in shallow coastal waters and can be found on the East Coast from Cape Cod to Florida. Dogfish shark There are two varieties of the dogfish shark – smooth and spiny. Spiny dogfish can grow up to 4 feet and have two dorsal fins with ungrooved large spines. Smooth dogfish sharks can grow to 5 feet. They live in shallow bays, continental shelves and near offshore banks. Sand tiger According to Oceana, the sand tiger shark lives near the seafloor in surf zones, shallow bays and coral and rocky reefs. They can grow to more than 10 feet and weigh 350 pounds. The sand tiger shark is the only shark known to maintain neutral buoyancy by gulping air at the water's surface and holding it in its stomach. This allows the sand tiger shark to hover motionless in the water. Atlantic mako shark According to Oceana, the Atlantic mako shark lives in the open ocean and reaches lengths of 12 feet and weights at least 1,200 pounds. It is one of the fastest fish on the planet, swimming at speeds around 45 mph. These sharks are caught commercially or accidentally in fisheries. These sharks are valued for the high quality of their fins and meat. Hitting the beach: Are Delaware beaches safe for swimmers? Here's what the numbers say How to avoid sharks Again, once you enter the ocean or Delaware Bay, you are in their world. So here are a few tips from the DNREC and the County of Maui, Hawaii: Swim at lifeguard-monitored beaches, and follow their advice and any posted warning signs. Always swim in a group. Don't stray too far from the shore. Swim in water where you can see your feet. Avoid the water at dawn, dusk and at night. Don't enter the water if you have any open wounds or are bleeding in any way. Don't wear shiny objects in the water. Leave the water quickly and calmly if a shark is sighted; if you see a shark, alert lifeguards or other swimmers immediately. SHARK WEEK: Learn about the TV event and its copycats If you watch What: Discovery Channel's Shark Week When: Through July 26, starting at 8 each night Where: Airs on the Discovery Channel and streams on Discovery+ and HBO Max This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Which sharks are in Delaware waters. How to stay safe Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
06-07-2025
- Climate
- CBS News
Rockaway Beach shark sightings keep swimmers out of water on 4th of July weekend
Within the past several days over the 4th of July weekend, numerous shark sightings along New York beaches have kept swimmers temporarily out of the water. Officials say they have been monitoring the waters for sharks, including a stretch of Rockaway Beach in Queens where swimmers were temporarily ordered out of the water due to sightings. The sightings have taken place several times since Thursday. Rockaway Beach shark sightings On Saturday around 6 p.m., drone teams spotted a shark just 100 feet from swimmers near Beach 113. The sighting spanned Beach 113 Street to Beach 115. The Office of Emergency Management quickly shut down the beach and alerted anyone in or near the water. Friday on the 4th of July, there were two sightings at Rockaway Beach before noon, according to city officials. They say a shark was seen around 11:30 a.m. near Beach 32nd Street and another was reported at Beach 144th Street. A third was reported near Beach 30th Street, prompting a portion of the beach to close for an hour. For now, the city says they will constantly patrol the beaches with drones to detect shark activity and distressed swimmers. Is Rockaway Beach open? Rockaway Beach is set to be open on Sunday. City officials say they will make any necessary closures as the day goes on. Data from 2024 shows shark attacks are rare, with only 28 unprovoked shark bites and one person killed in the United States last year. In late June, a woman was bitten in the waters off Jones Beach by what experts say was likely a juvenile sand tiger shark.
CBS News
03-07-2025
- General
- CBS News
Will beachgoers in New York and New Jersey be safe from sharks this summer?
Millions are expected to head to beaches across New York and New Jersey this Fourth of July weekend, but will they be safe from sharks? Last week, officials said a woman was likely bitten by a shark at Jones Beach, prompting precautions. There will be more drones, plus lifeguards on the lookout, but, as they say in "Jaws," those beaches will be open. Still, with this incident — and the 50th anniversary of the classic shark attack film — on their minds, some beachgoers are wondering, are sharks a bigger problem? CBS News New York's Dick Brennan asked experts for this edition of "Question Everything." Data shows shark attacks are rare across U.S. Experts say there's more marine life in the water, including sharks, in part because waters have gotten warmer and they're not as over-fished as they used to be, so the chances for an encounter are greater. But Joe Yaiullo, curator and co-founder of the Long Island Aquarium, says humans are not on the menu. "If we were, the sharks would be lining up off of Jones Beach and Robert Moses and just waiting for these millions of people to go in the water," he said. "So any incident that usually happens is an inquisitive incident. A shark doesn't have hands to feel with, so they're going to mouth something. They get a lot of tactile information by mouthing something." CBS News New York The most recent statistics from 2024 show attacks are rare. There were just 28 unprovoked shark bites and one fatality in the entire United States last year. "Many more people die of bee stings. Many more people die driving to the beach," Yaiullo said. Teen surfer undeterred after shark encounter off Fire Island Eighteen-year-old Maxwell Haynes, of Islip, knows what it's like to encounter a shark firsthand — or in this case, foot. "It was terrifying. It was like a primal fear I can't even describe," he said. Three summers ago, Haynes was surfing at Kismet Beach off Fire Island when he got the surprise of his life. "Out of nowhere, I just got bit in my right leg," he said. Haynes said he knew right away it was shark. Maxwell Haynes, 16, is carried off the beach after getting bitten by a shark in July 2022. CBS2 "I freaked out. I started kicking and then it just let go after a few seconds," he said. Haynes was bit in water that was just 4 feet deep. "My foot probably just looked like any other fish," he said. The attack, or encounter as experts like to say, ended fast; the shark swam off, and Haynes, who was just 16 at the time, recovered quickly. The incident hasn't scared him away, though. He's now a lifeguard and an EMT, and he's still surfing, even around sharks. Dick Brennan goes diving with sharks Brennan decided to get his own up-close encounter. He entered the Long Island Aquarium's shark tank in a large cage alongside dive expert Barry Lipsig. Seven sharks, including some sand tiger sharks, were inside the tank, but they seemed oblivious to the divers, minding their own business. CBS News New York's Dick Brennan took a dive in a shark tank at Long Island Aquarium in 2025. CBS News New York Experts say sharks don't want to bite humans, but they'll sometimes nip at swimmers and surfers, and even that can be dangerous. "If you're in the water and you do see that fin, could be a shark fin. Safest bet is just get out of the water," Yaiullo said. So what's the best way to avoid sharks? Experts say don't swim at dawn or dusk, and don't swim around large schools of fish or seals.
Yahoo
29-06-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Know Before You Go: Why These Beaches Are Considered The Most Dangerous In The US
It's probably no surprise that the top 10 most dangerous beaches in the U.S. are in Florida, according to a 2025 analysis. While the Sunshine State is known for its dozens of beautiful, white, sandy beaches, it also gets the highest number of hurricanes and shark attacks. Those are two of the main factors that the tide and weather forecasting platform, Tideschart, used to analyze 528 beaches across the United States. The other major factor was surf-zone deaths. The surf zone is where waves begin to break as they reach the shore, deaths are often caused by three hazards in that zone: Rip Currents - these strong, narrow currents create a high-speed channel that can rip you out to sea. High Surf - large, powerful waves churned up by swells from a distant storm. Sneaker Waves - large waves that suddenly swamp the shore, taking people by surprise and sweeping them out into deeper water. (MORE: 2025 Hurricane Season Outlook) Each beach in the top 10 has experienced 126 hurricanes, but the destination with the distinction of the number 1 spot had a staggering number of shark attacks. Here are the top 10: 23 Shark Attacks 5 Surf Zone Deaths 19 shark attacks 6 Surf Zone Deaths 0 Shark Attacks 10 Surf Zone Deaths 35 Shark Attacks 7 Surf Zone deaths 39 Shark Attacks 7 Surf Zone Deaths Indialantic Beach is a favorite with surfers, but the 8-foot swells that attract them also make this beach especially risky. It's had nine surf-zone deaths and 30 shark attacks. Miami Beach may be Florida's most famous beach but surf conditions have caused 14 deaths and there have been 17 shark attacks. The powerful currents at Daytona Beach, on Florida's Atlantic Coast, are blamed for 27 deaths and there have been 67 shark attacks Just two miles west of Panama City Beach, Daytona Beach had the highest number of surf-related deaths - 39, with nine shark attacks recorded. South of Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach had more shark attacks than all the other 9 beaches combined. 277 encounters were recorded there, in addition to 12 surf-zone deaths. And while this list may seem like a beach bummer, there's no need to abandon your seaside plans. Just remember to stay aware, pay attention to high-surf and other flagged warnings and stay informed during hurricane season.
ABC News
27-06-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Against scapesharking: How sharks can help us test the morals of a moral panic - ABC Religion & Ethics
You can listen to Chris Pepin-Neff discuss the legacy of 'Jaws' with Waleed Aly and Scott Stephens on The Minefield. Moral panics should not be easy. Moral certainty should be certain. And the experience of a panic need not be entirely without legitimacy. The social and political debate about the acceptability of an issue, action or group is serious and can have lasting implications through the policy process. Some policy issues collapse under their own weight, while others wait until there is a collapse in confidence. Moral panics in society involve four general actors: rule creators, rule enforcers, rule followers and rule violators. Australia has been uniquely competitive in its embrace of moral panics in recent memory — such as the tragic Azaria Chamberlain case, the Cronulla riots, 'boat people', the photography of Bill Hansen, needles in strawberries, 'Safe Schools' and drag queen story times. It is a disturbing feature of moral panics that some of the things in this list include actual horrors, while others are social distortions. While the likes of David Marr and Benjamin Law have made important contributions on some of these moral panics, when it comes to shark panics and the Shark Attack Industrial Complex — well, these are my specialty. For almost 20 years, I have worked on public education for beach safety to reduce the risk of shark bites. Now, let's be clear: sharks do bite people, shark attacks do happen, and these can be fatal. What I'm opposed to is what I've come to call 'scapesharking' — the process whereby a land animal blames marine life for real or perceived negative interactions that it experiences when it intentionally enters the ocean. To scapeshark, in other words, is to blame the ocean when one gets wet. Aerial images of Bondi Beach and Coogee Beach in Sydney. (James D. Morgan / Contributor / Getty Images) The time has come to re-story the beach in Australia. There is no such thing as a beach. There is land and there is water. And while I am no fan of binaries, the fact remains that, for the ocean, there is just in or out — the ocean does not know how far out you are. The moral panic that has tolerated the 'shark control' myth has gone on long enough. For 88 years, shark nets and other tools have been used to tell the public that sharks and people in the ocean are governable. Yet, policy responses to shark bites are mostly political theatre designed to calm the public and boost public confidence, to the benefit of elected officials who are feeling the heat. It is too shallow an observation to say that politicians do not care about public safety. Politicians do care about public safety. But it is also true that they use the discourse around 'public safety' as a license to kill or cull sharks, whether it helps or not. Human-shark interactions are largely ungovernable events and family tragedies — but the state makes the situation worse when they sell solutions that will not work, cast blame toward fish, and support retribution that perpetuates movie myths rather than evidence-based science and public education. It is also a fact, however, that the statistical infrequency of shark bites helps sustain the illusion of governability by suggesting that the absence of a shark bite for a long period means that something is working, even when it is not. The model of a great white shark is decorated with a rainbow sleeve on 9 February 2023 in Sydney, which was hosting WorldPride. (Photo by Brendon Thorne / Getty Images) The moral panic can be found both in the ready target and 'folk devil' that sharks make, the ease with the policy process moves to punish them and the lack of consequences for politicians in fabricating the entire outcome. Moral panics are too easy, and the accountability is too slow. A moral panic should have more consequences than a weather report that predicts rain on a sunny day. When a state or federal government chooses the easier and familiar path because it is easier and familiar, we are all in trouble. The public should be aware that government attempts to prevent shark bites are not about preventing shark bites generally. It is more about preventing certain frequencies of shark bites in certain locations to certain kinds of people. Indeed, these programs are about preventing specific conditions that produce political penalties on government officials. This includes clusters of shark bites in a short period of time and a defined area, fatal incidents on children, shark bites near tourist locations, and shark bites near populated areas with high media exposure. Shark 'control' programmes — including shark nets — and other forms of new age quackery from the 1930s that have been perpetuated into a commercial industry for 'public safety are like so many other slippery 'medicinal' oils. But the fact remains that shark nets are the wacky healing crystals of beach safety. The only difference is that incantations do not attract sharks to the beach, so they are harmless. Shark nets do attract sharks toward beaches when they catch fish that struggle to get away. Shark net at Cottesloe beach in Western Australia. (Dobe / iStock / Getty Images) Repetition is not a replacement for reliability. A pattern of repeated policy behaviours does not lower the standard for accepting the truth as truth or obscure the presence of incomplete information about public safety. Repetition without reflection creates a social and political dependency where the beach is seen as property — a domesticated recreation spot rather than a wild ocean ecosystem. And on this beach, sharks are seen as intruders. The shark is in the part of the ocean where it does not belong. Therefore, there is a need to push back on the complacency that makes moral panics — and shark panics — escape a simple test of veracity. However, the willingness to believe something that exists based on the social and political desirability of it to exist, reinforces the idea that the beach is some kind of front-lawn to nation — an economic bounty that has valuable natural resources to the extent that the resources can be controlled. And here we see the political benefit and necessity of scapesharking. Crowds run out of the water in a scene from the film 'Jaws', directed by Steven Spielberg. (Photo by Universal / Getty Images) Controlling shark bites near the beach is important in order to control the public illusion. Shark bites represent a deviation from the illusion that the beach is not the wild and belongs to the citizenry in a kind of manifest destiny — where all beaches are safe, and all sharks are dangerous. But this contends with the real-life experience of people having actually been to the beach — this is essential because the beachgoer needs to believe the beach is safe in order to sustain the illusion because of their fear of sharks and the latent awareness and vulnerability of a land animal in the ocean. Here, what I've called 'the Jaws effect' is key because it represents the political transformation where something that is 'more fiction than real' becomes 'more real than fiction' to serve political purposes. The beach is an illustration of danger and vulnerability, and human-shark interactions are a symptom. Public safety comes from education about the environment and personal responsibility when you enter the wild. The moral panics around sharks are a distraction from the real risks that come from politicians telling people the beach is safe so they can build more hotels and win re-election. The moral of the story is that all we need to do is treat the beach like the bush. All Australians know how to do that, and we don't blame the bush for being the bush. Chris Pepin-Neff is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Sydney. Their research interests include agenda-setting, emotions and public policy, and LGBTQ+ politics. They are the author of Tolerable Inequality: Understanding Public Policy and LGBTQ+ Politics and Flaws: Shark Bites and Emotional Public Policymaking.
